‘Everybody Was Screaming’: California Mom Breaks School Bus Window to Free Child After Driver Locked Kids Inside, Now She’s Got a Vandalism Charge
California school kids were filmed climbing out of a school bus after the bus driver stopped on the side of Highway 49 and allegedly locked the children inside. Furious parents arrived on the scene shortly afterwards demanding their children be let out, and one mother even went as far as to smash a window.
The students had been held on the bus for approximately an hour after one child climbed out of one of the windows, reports the New York Post. The bus driver pulled over and instructed the children on board to roll up their windows and wait for the police to arrive. “That’s when the bus driver was like, ‘Sit down, roll up the windows,” said one of the children who had been on the bus at the time.
Angry parents, who had been informed of the situation by children on the bus with phones, raced to the scene to confront the bus driver. Despite their protests, the bus driver refused to let the children off, prompting a stand-off.
One parent, Nichole Wellington, told the Post that her son had been frightened, which convinced her to confront the driver: “I went right to the door, and I was like, ‘Dude, open the door. Let me have my kid.’ And he’s like, ‘I’m not doing that.’” Wellington said she eventually got her son to climb out of one of the windows as a makeshift exit. Several more students were also reportedly seen using windows as exits, but other parents had a different approach.
The situation escalated
One of the mothers smashed the window pane on the bus door to free her child. In footage of the event, which was recorded by students on the bus, someone can be heard saying that someone had broken the window “to get into the bus.” The mother who smashed the window was subsequently taken into custody for vandalism at the request of the school.
On X, many claimed they understood the mother’s decision to do what she did to protect her child. “You are giving me my child one way or another. Pay the vandalism fine and arrange other transportation if need be,” One person wrote.
Another mother by the name of Rebecca Glover, who was also present at the scene, took a different approach, instructing her two children to stay put. “There was not just one child they had to think of,” she said. “They had to think of every single child on that bus at that time.”
The bus driver reportedly followed district protocols by keeping the children inside, and the Sheriff’s office reiterated that “School bus safety rules exist to protect students and should be followed by both students and parents.”
(Featured image: CBS)
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